Product Description

Whereas most Bible study books cover a single topic, this unique resource will give your small group a wealth of subjects to choose from each week---including angels, temptation, worship, church, visions, the Holy Spirit, mercy, and many others. Flexible and easy-to-lead, the short lessons offer Bible references and discussion questions to keep conversation flowing.

Publisher's Description

Whereas the typical Bible study book covers a single topic, 102 Fascinating Bible Studies gives small groups a wealth of options to choose from each week. Today's small groups need guides that allow for flexibility, whether because they are in a temporary transition, their membership is in constant flux, or they are taking a short break between longer studies. 102 Fascinating Bible Studies contains a wealth of diverse topics, ranging from "angels" to "temptation" to "worship." This book is also ideal for individuals looking for a refreshing new devotional guide.

Author Bio

Preston A. Taylor is a retired pastor and missionary to Argentina. He received his BD and ThM degrees from Southwestern Baptist Seminary and his DMin from Luther Rice Seminary. For the past 25 years, he has written a weekly devotional message for newspapers in the towns where he has served as pastor. Dr. Taylor currently lives in Zapata, Texas.

My adult Sunday school class really enjoyed this book. The topics are interesting and you can pick and choose those you want to study the most. It worked especially well for a summer study when people went on vacation because it was a new topic every week. The scripture references and questions were good, but could always be modified or added to to make it more personal for the group.

This book provides 102 topical Bible studies for small groups. Each Bible study is intended to last for only one session, and the studies can be done in any order. Each study started with some comments by the author followed by 10 Scripture readings with an average of 2-4 questions after each Scripture reading.

The author strongly suggested reading the verses surrounding the given verses so that the reader has context. Indeed, sometimes the questions seemed to refer to verses just outside those referenced in the study. The verses were given in order so that they'd be easy to look up, however this sometimes meant that the study jumped around rather than had similar verses grouped together.

The questions he provided will get a discussion going. However, while many of the questions had their answers in the verses read, more frequently the questions were lightly connected to the verses and asked questions that the reader would answer with their own opinions. To me, the point of a Bible study is to see what the Bible teaches--how God answers those questions--so I was a bit disappointed by this.

My overall impression of these Bible studies was of uneven quality. Some studies did a great job of pulling out the verses that gave the "whole Bible" view of the topic and the questions focused on finding what the Bible said on the topic. Others studies skipped what I thought were important verses in favor of others so it gave a slanted view on the topic (like the Angel verse/question section ignored their main role, which is as messengers).

So I like the idea of this book, and I liked about 40 of the studies. However, I'd recommend that anyone using this book for small group studies look the possible study over for quality before suggesting it to the group.